From: cluster.user@yale.edu (Cluster User) Subject: Re: Caucasoid Turks/Bulgars Date: 08 Apr 1999 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <370d1b3e.17350739@news.yale.edu> References: <369E3BE1.5C45@sbu.ac.uk> <77li2j$qi0$1@whisper.globalserve.net> <369F52FE.2B6@sbu.ac.uk> <77rc86$auj$1@brokaw.wa.com> <36A444B3.F3B70F1C@alum.mit.edu.-> <7827sb$269$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36A52D70.9E372DD2@alum.mit.edu.-> <36A556AB.9927BD29@montclair.edu> <36a63533.58309714@news.yale.edu> <7866ud$i9m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36cdb21e.883120019@news.wxs.nl> <36A7FCC8.79790A6B@earthlink.net> <36d77e23.1000882888@news.wxs.nl> <36a8d455.81661202@news.yale.edu> <78pl3c$84o@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <36b0dc2f.3434839@news.yale.edu> <78v30o$vl6@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <36b34d7c.60430113@news.yale.edu> <794e84$4iq@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <3744d12a.1873763068@news.wxs.nl> <796m95$eq2@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <375c0ea6.1954957123@news.wxs.nl> <79fo99$qkl@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <370296ad.69443734@news.yale.edu> <7dvofs$ai0@cpca3.uea.ac.uk> <370a6f59.1892451@news.yale.edu> <7efi7l$trh$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> Organization: Yale University Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology,sci.lang On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 12:14:49 GMT, e.karloukovski@uea.ac.uk wrote: >... > >No, I meant that "burdzhan" was an arabic name for the bulgars. Thus this >town of Burzan-dzhirt (today - Bursan-dzhirt) in the oasis of Merv could be >translated as "bulgarian town". This fits to the account of Al-Bakuvi that >the bulgars (burdzhans) inhabited (before their migration?) fertile southern >fields "where there were a lot of grape, figs and plums" [R. Kuzev, >Proishozhdenie bashkir, M., 1974, 35-36]. > as I said before this may be reference to the relatively balmy climate of the northern black sea region. >The point was that some islamic authors connect the bulgars and the khazars >but say their language wasn't either turkic or persian. The persian At-Tabari >wrote in 915 that in 556-571 the turkuts occupied the eastern Northern >Caucasus by defeating the khazars and the people "b-n-dzh-r" (belendzher, the yes. this is established. -r turkic and common turkic had separated before (possibly with the dissolution of the hsiung-nu). >pahlavi form of "bulgar" according to V. Gening and A. Khalikov). The danube apparently a town of that name remained. >bulgars are called "burdzhan" by Al-Fazari (772/73 AD). Al-Masudi (20-30's of >the X c.) calls the volga bulgars "burdzhans", and the danube - "bulgars". He >describes as turkic the nogays, the pechenegs, the badzhards (bashkirs), but yes. these were the tribes closely associated with the tu"rku"t confederacy (or trivbes derived from them). -r turkic had seperated before. the tu"rku"t used their language as a formal court language and wrote it down. thus they established a certain amount of linguistic uniformity (until their breakup) and a uniformity in customs, beliefs etc.. they also gave their to the tribes at the core of the confederacy. thus it is not surprising that the above mentioned tribes were readliy identified as turks. the -r turkic people in the west were not part of the core of the confederacy and were only briefly conquered by it. thus their language diverged and would not have been readily identified as turkic by one who is not very well familiar with "standard" turkic. >not the bulgars. Ibn-Fadlan (921-922) says that the language of the volga >bulgars didn't resemble either turkic or slavic, while Istahri, Haukal, Bekri I'll look at the last names at little more. >and Jakut find similarities between the khazar and bulgar l-s, but say they >didn't resemble either turkic or persian. yes. it didn't resemble *common* turkic. on the other hand, the known handful of khazar words are turkic. moreover, a section of the khazars and onoghurs established dominion over the magyars and brought about a bilinguilaism (this is recorded). we know their language from the considerable loans in hungarian - not identifiable with either qypchaq or ottoman turkish - but showing great similarity to volghabulghar and chuvash. > >Abu al-Rashid al-Bakuvi (XV c.) [Kitab talhis al-asar, M., 1971] in an >abridged copy of the geographical treaty of Zakharija al-Kazvini (1203-1283) >relates that the city of Bolgar (on Volga) was ... at two months journey from >Constantinople and that around it lived a multidute of turkic peoples, which this is quite an accurate description of the situation at the time. >indirectly shows that for Al-Bakuvi the bulgars were not a turkic people. it is pointless to speculate what is meant by this, as it is now well established what the situation was for this time. for the 13th century there was the indiginous (at least relatively speaking) volgabulghar, -r turkic speaking population and qypchaq an some central asian turks using the eastern turkic standard as their written language. this one gets from direct epigraphic material. >Al-Kazvini describes the people of Bolgar as being among those who "believed i.e. believed in God, were muslims. >in Khuda" and run away in the northern countries, where they reached you mean <> the northern countries >prosperity. this is probably a reflection of the bulghar migration from the kuman region. > >Another author - Dimashki, met in Bagdad several bulgars, pilgrims to Mecca. >They said to him that they "were born between the turks and the slavs". well, this is quite an accurate description, "from the horse's mouth" (without disrespect for the chap who said it!) of the ethnic anscestry of the chuvash, if by "saqa:liba(t)" one means a collective term of slavs and uralic people of the north. >"Huzhat al-Kulub" of Hamdallah Kazvini (1280-1349) probably points to the >region inhabited by the bulgars, khazars before their migration to the west: >Kazvini puts Khoresm, Saksin and Bulgar to the east of the Khazar (Caspian) >sea, while for Al-Bakuvi Saksin was a "populous town in Khazaria". This >evidence could be explained by the assertion of Al-Khvarismi (a persian from >Khoresm, who between 836-847 AD drew a geographical map of Central Asia, >Caucasus on the basis of older, pre-islamic sources) that the starting point >of the khazar migration to the west was Khoresm [Kalinina, T.M., Svedenija as an eastern origin for the khazars is generally agreed upon, a passage through khwarezm or the eastern caspian region would be likely in any scenario. >rannih uchenIh Arabskogo khalifata, M., 1988] >Al-Biruni (973-1048), however, thinks that the language of the volga bulgars >was a mixture of khazar and turkic. he also refers to the "khazar turks" (at least the the royal house seems to have had dynastic relations to the tu"rku"t). again, see above for the khazars. > >VK > >-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- >http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own